glass
which she had nervously picked up again and was holding between her
fingers, fell on to the tablecloth with a little crash, and the yellow
wine ran bubbling on to her plate. Her scream echoed to the roof and
rang through the room. It was Bernadine who stood there in the doorway,
Bernadine in a long traveling ulster and the air of one newly arrived
from a journey. They all three looked at him, but there was not one who
spoke. The Baroness, after her one wild cry, was dumb.

"I am indeed fortunate," Bernadine said. "You have as yet, I see,
scarcely commenced. You probably expected me. I am charmed to find so
agreeable a party awaiting my arrival."

He divested himself of his ulster and threw it across the arm of the
butler, who stood behind him.

"Come," he continued; "for a man who has just been killed in a railway
accident, I find myself with an appetite. A glass of wine, Carl. I
do not know what that toast was, the drinking of which my coming
interrupted, but let us all drink it together. Aimee, my love to you,
dear. Let me congratulate you upon the fortitude and courage with which
you ignored those lying reports of my death. I had fears that I might
find you alone in a darkened room, with tear-stained eyes and sal
volatile by your side. This is infinitely better. Gentlemen, you are
welcome."

Sogrange lifted his glass and bowed courteously. Peter followed suit.

"Really," Sogrange murmured, "the Press nowadays becomes more unreliable
every day. It is apparent, my dear Von Hern, that this account of your
death was, to say the least of it, exaggerated."

Peter said nothing. His eyes were fixed upon the Baroness. She sat in
her chair quite motionless, but her face had become like the face of
some graven image. She looked at Bernadine, but her eyes said nothing.
Every glint of expression seemed to have left her features. Since that
one wild shriek she had remained voiceless. Encompassed by danger though
he knew they now must be, Peter found himself possessed by one thought
only. Was this a trap into which they had fallen, or was the woman, too,
deceived?

"You bring later news from Paris than I myself," Sogrange proceeded,
helping himself to one of the dishes which a footman was passing round.
"How did you reach the coast? The evening papers stated distinctly that
since the accident no attempt had been made to run trains."

"By motor car from Chantilly," Bernadine replied. "I had the misfortune
to lose my